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Dan Gillmor: Are smart tags a surveillance system tool? Reuters: "Internet cafes offer people in China a way to get online and speak up without identifying themselves, making cyberspace almost impossible to regulate, despite a slew of high-profile arrests in China since March." Newsbytes: "We believe in total empowerment of the user to decide what content they want to look at," [Shawn Sanford, the group product manager for Microsoft's Windows Client] said. "Everybody tends to focus on the negative side of this like we're going to expose (users) to a lot of bad content ... I think we're going to expose people to a lot of good content." This is why software monopolies suck. Microsoft has the power to alter our content. This is unacceptable. I've had so many MS people want to debate this with me. They play the usual tricks, try to walk me around the trap door, but it's totally impossible to miss. Sanford, quoted above, states the problem quite clearly. Microsoft thinks they can improve my writing. This makes me want to get a gun and go to war. Survey: Are you tired of Microsoft? A year ago today I was arguing with Microsoft over something quite similar. "I don't care if it's right or wrong that Microsoft is broken up. They lost my support when I read the emails. Jim Allchin's comments particularly. He should have been fired on the spot for suggesting that Microsoft use its dominance of operating systems to win the war with Netscape. Of course he wasn't fired, because this is the business model at Microsoft. And it's illegal. And totally wrong. And unfair, and everything else that evokes my anger." Allchin is still at Microsoft. Doc: "I think I'll go home and pour some coffee in my eyes." A couple of notes to the anti-abortion people who send me emails. It's a complicated issue because another person is involved, a woman. We know that the mother is a person. It's a matter of philosophy whether a fetus is. For some people there is a clear answer to this conundrum, for others, like me and many others, there is not. When in doubt, my philosophy says, give the power to decide to the individual. I'm not happy with this, in some kind of perfect world we'd never have to answer this question. Further, I believe that human population growth is the core problem to the survivability of the planet. And where the heck do you draw the line. Is sperm a life that must be protected too? The other notable thing about this discussion is the inability of the anti-abortion people to discuss with respect. Their emails are often personally insulting. Salon's travel tips for Dubya on his first trip to Europe. "When you step back onto Air Force One and head home, you'll discover what every first-time visitor to Europe learns: It's great to come back in the best country in the world." Do you love Kottke? You have lots of company. 
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